updating binary

Updating the Binary

You will learn how to build, install, and restart update-ipsets with minimal downtime.

Build a new version

make build

This produces the update-ipsets binary in the project root.

Install

./install.sh

The install script:

• Installs UI dependencies, rebuilds the UI bundle, and builds the Go binary
• Copies it to the installation directory (default /opt/update-ipsets/bin/)
• Deploys the configuration catalog
• Installs or updates the systemd unit
• Creates a timestamped backup of the previous configuration if it changed

Restart

sudo systemctl restart update-ipsets

The restart is fast. The daemon loads configuration, checks for recoverable staged state, and starts serving. Startup does not wait for full catalog processing or integrity scans.

Zero-downtime considerations

The daemon restarts quickly — typically under a second. If you have a reverse proxy in front of update-ipsets, the proxy's health check against /healthz detects the brief unavailability and retries.

For true zero-downtime, run two instances behind a load balancer and restart them one at a time.

Verifying the update

Check that the new version is running:

update-ipsets version

The public status endpoint does not expose the build version. To check that the daemon is running after restart:

curl -s http://localhost:18888/api/v1/status | jq '{running: .engine.running, sources: .engine.source_count, uptime: .system.uptime}'

Configuration backup

install.sh creates a timestamped backup of the previous configuration directory when it detects changes. Backups are stored alongside the active configuration:

/opt/update-ipsets/etc/config.bak.20250501120000/

To roll back the configuration:

sudo rm -rf /opt/update-ipsets/etc/config
sudo mv /opt/update-ipsets/etc/config.bak.20250501120000 /opt/update-ipsets/etc/config
sudo systemctl restart update-ipsets

Manual config edits

When the installed config directory differs from the repository catalog, install.sh backs up the whole active config directory and replaces it with configs/firehol/.

To preserve local edits across updates, keep a patch or a copy of your modified files outside the config directory, then reapply it after the reinstall.